1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plasma display panel (PDP) driver and a method for driving a PDP.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
A PDP is a flat panel display (FPD) for displaying characters or images using the plasma generated by gas discharge, where millions of pixels may be arranged in a matrix format in the PDP according to the PDP's size. The PDP is classified as a direct current (DC) PDP or an alternating current (AC) PDP depending on waveforms of applied driving voltages and configurations of discharge cells.
In general, the AC PDP driving method uses a reset period, an address period, and a sustain period with respect to temporal operation variations.
During the reset period, wall charges formed by a previous sustain operation are erased, and cells are reset so as to fluently perform a next address operation. During the address period, cells to be turned on are selected, and the wall charges are accumulated on the turned-on cells (i.e., addressed cells). During the sustain period, a discharge for displaying images to the addressed cells is executed. When the sustain period starts, sustain pulses are alternately applied to the scan electrodes and sustain electrodes to thus perform sustaining and displaying the images.
Conventionally, a ramp waveform is applied to a scan electrode so as to establish wall charges in the reset period, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,086. That is, a gradually rising ramp waveform is applied to the scan electrode, and then a gradually falling ramp waveform is applied thereto. Since control precision on the wall charges greatly depends on the gradient of the ramp when applying these ramp waveforms, the wall charges are not finely controlled within a predetermined time frame under the scheme disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,745,086.